The Seventh Day
by Zera Rask
Summary: When a prophesy about the destruction of the world starts to come true there's only one team who can handle the job, but after a devastating loss to the BPRD Hellboy and the gang will need some help from an old friend who was transferred. HIATUS
1. Chapter 1

**PROLOGUE**

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_"Is everything prepared?"_

"_Yes Master, you need only chose a disciple to deliver your message."_

_ "Send the girl."_

"_M-master are you... Are you sure?"_

_ "DO NOT QUESTION ME! Send the girl."_

"_Y-yes Master. Please forgive me."_

_ "Very well. The girl shall deliver the first bomb shall to Bureau of Paranormal Research and Defense, the heart of all darkness."_

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A young, slim man with black hair that hung limply around his face entered the BPRD at seven on the dot. He has brown eyes and a dull unremarkable face. In fact the only thing about him that stood out were three long, ugly, red claw marks that had been recently stitched up. It was this injury that Hellboy noticed first about the man and, in his abrasive way, he bluntly pointed with a cigar and asked. "Cat fight?" The young man blinked and took in the strange, muscled, red sight before him. Hellboy took a drag on his cigar and blew it into the agents face, causing him to look away and cough. "You gonna stand there gawkin' all day or are ya gonna answer my question?" The agent paled a bit and hesitated before answering.

"I was umm. It was a previous assignment. I uh, I'd rather not talk about it." Hellboy scratched a gray tabby that rubbed against his leg and spent a moment in meditative thought. If the new pamcake pusher didn't want to talk about it that was fine with him, he hadn't meant to really upset the kid. He straightened up and stretched just to see if the kid would flinch. A little smile twitched the corner of the demon's mouth when the agent, faced with his looming height, didn't move a muscle. Maybe this one would work out.

"Well scarface, lets get this over with." The agent seemed confused and followed behind Hellboy as he walked out of the catastrophe of cats, televisions, and papers he called a room.

"My name is Adam." Red gave him a glare that could melt ice and said coolly.

"I didn't ask what your name was kid. Now come on." He quickened his pace forcing Adam to run to keep up.

"Where are we going? I was told I would be your handler." Hellboy rolled his eyes, boy when he got a hold of Manning, well that could wait.

"Look, you work with me you work with the rest of the team." Adam scrunched up his brow.

"That doesn't answer my question." Hellboy smiled. A quick wit, this kid might actually be fun. Instead of answering him Hellboy opened the door to the library and said.

"Time to meet the freaks."

Adam was shocked by the amount of books this room. So absorbed was he by the vast amounts of literature that he didn't even notice the two people in the room until the walked up to introduce themselves. The first one Adam noticed was the blue fish man. _"He's telepathic don't let him touch you." _A whisper warned inside his head. The blue man held out a hand to shake and Adam hesitated for an instant before noticing the icthyopath was wearing gloves. "Hello my name is Abraham Sapien, but you may call me Abe."

"I'm Adam, nice to meet you." That introduction out of the way Adam turned to the other agent. A thin pale woman with short black hair and eyes that were blazing with some kind of internal inferno of whatever emotion she was feeling at that moment.

"Hi, I'm Liz." He smiled a real smile for the first time in a long time and took her hand, which for some strange reason reminded him of sitting around a warm campfire.

"I'm Adam, pleased to meet you." She smiled at him and Adam quickly dropped the oddly warm hand. He glanced back at the demon, who was leaning against a soft leather couch, and then back at the incredibly normal looking Liz. "I don't mean to be rude, but um Hellboy said-"

"Oh I'm sure he said a lot of things." Liz smiled at the red demon and moved next to him. Adam saw her eyes burn with a love so intense it almost hurt him to look at. She held a hand up and suddenly it was engulfed in blue flame. Adam jumped back and Hellboy laughed at his knee jerk reaction.

"Yeah, its real surprising the first time you see it." The demon laughed and Adam smiled and asked.

"So what is this place anyway?" Abe looked up from the oak desk where he was strapping a breathing mechanism around his neck.

"It was Professor Broom's office and the contains every book owned by the BPRD. This room contains the most information on paranormal and religious material in the world." Hellboy shook his head.

"The way he describes it you'd expect some clunky librarian to come with the place. This is where we hang out when we're off duty. There's always a few bottles of somethin' hidden behind these old books." Liz shoved him playfully and he nipped her neck causing her to smack him on the arm.

"This is where we can be ourselves, where no one will judge us. Its like the heart of the bureau." Adam winced a bit at that, but quickly covered it up with a yawn. Hellboy smirked.

"Tired already, Scarface?" Adam smiled but Liz and Abe looked shocked.

"Red how could you- I am so sorry Adam, he's usually not this rude, well no, actually he is, but I'm sorry."

"Its okay Liz, really I don't mind." Liz still looked uncertain, but Abe seemed to have forgotten the matter entirely.

"Are those from a werewolf, Adam? I had heard about a pack that was running rampant in the mountains of North Carolina." Adam brushed his fingertips absently over the stitches and nodded.

"Yeah, it was in the mountains." There was a short silence as each of them ruminated over past injuries. Finally Liz spoke up.

"Red, I think we'd all like some alcohol now."

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Red surveyed the scene in the library with the rosy eyed happiness of a drunk person. Music was playing from a boom box, several different bottles lay drained on the floor and chairs, and Abe and Liz were fighting in overly loud slurred voices about the meaning of a poem. "I-I I keep on telling you Lizzz. I keep on telling- you jusht won't listen." Abe took a swig from the bottle he and Liz were sharing and blundered on. "When they say that the world will be consumed by fire they don't mean literally, they don't, they just don't."

"Well what does it mean then? Cause I been convinced ever since I read the damned thing that it was about the sun exploding and consu-comsumin-burning up the Earth." Abe shook his head adamantly, spilling a little bit of tequila as he did so.

"No noooooooo. Its all about the world being taken over by evil forces." Liz seemed to contemplate that for a moment.

"Oh." Then she grinned and they both fell into a fit of inebriated laughter. There was one thing however that was not rosy and drunk at this little party and that was Adam. Red shambled over the the new agent and plopped down on the couch next to him. Handing over his bottle of whiskey Red smiled.

"Here. Drink."

"I'm on the clock."

"Aw, come on man, lighten up." He tried to place the bottle in Adam's hand. The agent refused to take the bottle and continued to stare at Abe and Liz. Dimly sensing that his young, new friend might be upset Hellboy took a drink for the both of them. "So what's going on? And look, I know you said you didn't wanna talk 'bout it before, but does it have anything to do with-" He gestured at the claw marks. Adam looked down at his hands folded neatly in his lap and then back at Liz. He held a hand over the scarred side of his face.

"This doesn't matter." Red nodded with a deep understanding that only drunks seemed to have. That understanding came at the price of reduced motor skills so Red could only sloppily pat Adam on the shoulder.

"So its a girl then." He nodded.

"Yeah. Liz kind of reminds me of her." Hellboy smiled at the mention of his girlfriend.

"What happened." Adam sighed and seemed to sink deeper into the soft leather couch.

"Its complicated." The demon nodded.

"I know how that is brother." Suddenly Adam turned to face Hellboy and his dull brown eyes were blazing with a strange kind of light that seemed to animate his whole face.

"Do you love Liz, Hellboy?" Even the whiskey couldn't reduce that answer.

"With all that I am."

"And would you do anything to keep her safe, even if it was something you didn't think was right?" Hellboy paused before answering that one, thinking of the nightmare in the mausoleum.

"I almost did once." Adam's eyes burned out of his skull.

"What happened." He demanded urgently. Somewhere deep in Hellboy's instincts warning bells were starting to go off.

"A friend stopped me and helped me remember who I was and make the right choice. Adam is everything-" Real warning bells went off and surpassed even the music in volume. Abe and Liz were on their feet in an instant, albeit unsteadily, but Red remained seated next to Adam. The young agent was no longer looking at him, but he could tell that the fire had gone out of the kid's eyes. Whatever was about to be said had been buried by the alarm. Still Hellboy tried to push for an answer. He yelled over the siren and the music. "Adam, what's going on!" The agent still refused to look at him and now Liz was pulling on his arm yelling.

"We have to go its the red alarm!" Abe had already stumbled out the door, and Red stood up to follow with Liz.  
>"Adam, come on!" The boy remained seated but looked at Red with those brown eyes that were burning once more and said.<p>

"I'll be there in a minute, you take Liz and go!" Hellboy knew he should have pushed for Adam to come with them, but something in the kid's eyes just screamed don't ask questions and get the hell out of here. Suddenly Hellboy's instincts were firing off rocket ships. Something really bad was about to happen and he needed to get Liz away from it. He started to pull her away and towards the door, but she resisted stubbornly.

"Wait Red, what about Adam!" Hellboy continued to pull and started leading her out of the room.

"Forget about him we have to go now!"

"But Red!" He didn't have time to argue or explain, so instead he just picked her up and carried her out of the room. As Adam sat alone with the siren and the music competing with each other for loudest most annoying sound he whispered to Hellboy.

"I wish you could have been my friend. I've forgotten who I am."

Hellboy got Liz down the hallway and around the corner when the bomb went off. He clutched her tightly to his chest and let his body buffer her from the explosion. The wave of sound and heat slammed him into the wall and knocked the air out of his lungs. Then a wall came down nearby and he surged forward to get out of the way. Debris flew out and cut his face and arms. Face pressed tight against his chest he could feel Liz trying to remain in control of her destructive power. The last thing they needed was another fire. As the walls came crumbling down around them Hellboy could feel himself choking on dust as he tried to outrun the explosion. That's when the ceiling collapsed and a crushing weight covered him in rubble and unconsciousness. _**And the world shall be consumed by fire. And the destruction shall begin in the heart of those who protect against the forces of evil. And as they fall so too the world should fall in seven days time.**_

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	2. Chapter 2

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>The first thing Liz was aware of was a ringing in her ears. It was one of the warning signs that she was about to have an episode and she immediately started some deep breathing to help relax her heart beat. Okay now for the tricky part, what was the cause of the episode? Liz tried to think back, she remembered being in the library, and arguing with Abe, and- <em>fire there's so much fire- <em>they were all really drunk- _can't breath there's too much dust- _all of them except for Adam- _a crushing weight on her chest- _Adam with the marks on his face- _the blood oh God there's so much blood it tastes like copper but she can't spit it out- _Adam not moving even with the alarm going off- _got to find Hellboy but the weight oh the weight makes it impossible to move- _Adam with a bomb strapped to the small of his back, sweat making the tape start to loosen, but not enough before the numbers counted down to destruction and killed the only life she'd ever known the life that was growing inside her- _Liz? Liz! LIZ_

Abe didn't get drunk often, but when he did he got smashed. Underneath all his intellect and wit there were many pent up emotions, and sometimes he just had to let those loose. That was what had happened in the library. It didn't matter that Adam was practically a stranger. They were all agents, they had all seen... things. Often times when a group of agents got together there was a tension in the air. A certain knowledge that anyone of them could die on the next mission and many of them had died on previous missions. It was the shared knowledge of their own mortality and it was the shared knowledge of exactly what a friend's face looked like as their chest got torn to ribbons by some monster. It was the knowledge of death and it hurt to think about so they drank and made merry while they still could.

Abe vaguely remembered arguing with Liz, some literary matter that wasn't important now, then the red alert had gone off and he had stumbled out of the library and into the corridor. Where was he now though? It was hard underneath his back, and there were sharp things sticking into him. He tried to command his body to move, twitch, do anything to prove it was still alive. He managed to shift his shoulders a little, but even that small motion caused a burning pain to flair up in his chest. It felt as though a thousand stiletto heels were being pressed into his skin and then twisted around. Despite all that Abe tried to move again. Pain laced his chest and gripped his lungs tightly, forcing an involuntary groan out of him. Suddenly there was a noise he hadn't been aware of before. Someone was talking and trying to lift him. He yelled as something was pressed against his chest. "Its okay Abe, your gonna be okay." Whoever it was didn't sound very certain.

Hellboy opened his eyes and knew exactly where he was; in bed with Liz. The demon stretched contentedly and rolled over to face his true love. Liz's side of the bed was covered in blood. Hellboy shot out of bed like a bullet and nearly slipped when he landed in more blood. "Liz!" He ran out of the room following the gory trail and calling her name. Outside his room it was like another world. Sections of the walls and ceiling were gone and there was rubble every where. A coat of dust and office furniture and documents that would never be filed covered everything. Then Hellboy noticed the worst part. Pieces of agents were strewn everywhere. There was a hand in a corner and a leg hanging of an overturned chair. Hellboy took a disbelieving step forward and resisted the urge to look down at whatever body part had crunched under his foot. There was carnage everywhere, but no sign of Liz. Hellboy searched and searched through the bloody debris but he couldn't find any trace of Liz or Abe. He punched a slab of concrete with his stone hand and then sat down on a desk that had been blown in half. "Well that's not going to help you." Hellboy's head jerked up and he saw the person he was least expecting. John Meyers. Hellboy wasn't speechless often, but after the morning he just had it wasn't surprising that his mouth just hung open. John smiled his same old smile. "Better close that, or something you don't like will fly in."  
>"What the hell are you doing here?" The demon asked, getting over his shock. John sat down on the slab Hellboy had just punched and looked around sadly. The demon's temper and impatience was muted by the grim surroundings and he tried again. "John, what's going on?"<p>

"Someone set off a bomb in the BPRD." He answered matter-of-factually. Hellboy sneered and growled out a name.

"Adam." John's eyebrows raised slightly.

"You knew him." The demon nodded and gritted his teeth.

"Yeah, he was supposed to be the new you." John nodded and Hellboy stood up and kicked a stone angrily. "I should have seen this coming." He stared at the gruesome destruction and grimaced. "I should have known. John leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees. He clasped his hands under his chin but offered no reassurance to the demon.

"Its too bad about all these agents." He shook his head and said under his breath. "None of them were on the list. Such a waste." Hellboy didn't understand what he was talking about, but suddenly he realized that two people who were very important to him were still missing.

"Where are Liz and Abe?" He asked urgently. John just waved his hand dismissively and gave a very vague answer.

"They're safe, so are you by the way." Hellboy's brow wrinkled in confusion and he sat back down next to the agent.

"What is this place? The demon questioned. "I remember running down the hall with Liz, and then the bomb went off." John smiled, but it wasn't the same innocent smile of the young agent wanting to be apart of something, but not really knowing his place in the world. "Your in a coma Red. The explosion knocked you around pretty bad." Hellboy blinked in surprise and processed for a second. Normally he wouldn't care about his own mortality, but now that Liz was back with him, well he had more to live for. Not that Abe was meaningless, Hellboy would die for the fishman and he knew Abe would do the same, but it wasn't the same kind of special connection he had with Liz.

"Will I live?" He asked hopefully. John's look revealed nothing and his tone remained neutral. This definitely wasn't the same naive boyscout that had come to the BPRD almost two years ago.

"There's some bruising on your liver, and possibly some hemorrhaging. Scrapes, bruises, one cut on your forearm that went all the way to the bone." Hellboy shook his head, the kid could still go on and on about the unimportant details, maybe the old John was still there.

"Come on Boy Scout, skip ahead to the important stuff." The red demon demanded. An unknown emotion flickered across John's face, the first real emotion he had seen on the agent's face since this crazy ass dream had started. The emotion disappeared before Hellboy could identify it and John continued on in a business like manner.

"You were struck by a large piece of concrete. Would have crushed your skull if you weren't so hard headed." It was a weak attempt at a joke with no real feeling behind it. "There's some internal bleeding, they're waiting for the swelling to go down before they operate. The Doc says its fifty fifty, but its hard to speculate when your dealing with, well, a nonhuman. In the end it all depends on you." Hellboy nodded and looked around at the carnage that surrounded them. Then he repeated his first question, this time asking more deliberately.

"What the hell are you doing here?" John looked at him and smiled that same deadpan smile.

"You know, the voice of reason. The cricket on your shoulder giving you advice." Hellboy wasn't buying it and he pressed for the truth.

"Come on John, seriously. Someone poses as an agent and then blows this place all to hell, now I'm in a coma and your my Jiminy cricket? Why are you really here?" John's eyes burned out of his face hauntingly stark against his pale skin.

"What if I told you you wouldn't like the answer." Hellboy put his arm on the young man's shoulder and tried to look reassuring.

"I'd want you to tell me anyway." John smiled and shrugged the hand off, then he laughed. It was a stale hollow sound, like corn husks rustling in the wind. "What's so funny?" John's laughter died down and he answered.

"You are. I know you Red, and trust me when I say you don't want to know." Hellboy stood up angrily.

"Dammit John, things have changed! You can tell me. You know you can!" Now John was on his feet and pacing back and forth with some kind of anxiety. Hellboy caught him roughly by the arm and forced him to stop. "Just tell me."

"I can't!" He yelled with no further explanation and tried to break away, but the demon held him with an iron grip.

"Why not!" Hellboy yelled back and shook him for emphasis. Finally John broke under his grip.

"BECAUSE ITS YOUR FAULT!" The outburst shocked Hellboy into letting him go. John turned away from him and ran a hand through his hair.

"What do you mean by that?" John shook his head and stared at the floor.

"It was nothing. I lost my temper." Hellboy wasn't buying it.

"That was not nothing. Now tell me what you meant by that!" John sighed and sat down on the block of concrete.

"Its called dream walking, it allows you to enter another person's subconscious. It can be used to terrorize someone through dreams and nightmares, or simply for communication." John swallowed hard and continued. "Its an ability used by ghosts." Hellboy's brow wrinkled. Either he couldn't put the pieces together, or he just didn't want to.

"Then how are you doing it?" John chewed the inside of his cheek and stared up at the red demon. He didn't have to say anything, the answer was in his eyes. Hellboy ran a hand over his face and looked around. "Christ." He murmured, and then said insistently. "Jesus John, you don't mean." The agent nodded and his eyes shone with unshed tears. He smiled, as if to keep from crying, and said.

"Yeah, yeah, I died about a year ago in Antarctica." Hellboy pressed his lips together and then swore.

"Dammit." John stared at the floor and relived old memories. "How did it happen?" The demon asked and John shook his head.

"No Red, you don't want to know that." Hellboy nodded, and knelt in front of the agent.

"I do. I need to know." The agent stared at him with no expression on his face and then changed. His left eye twitched and some cuts appeared criss crossing over his cheeks. Hellboy stood up shocked, but continued to watch as John sat unmoving.

"I was in a patrol over the tundra when our ice rover crashed. I flew clear out the windshield, but the others" John broke off a moment moment before continuing. "they all died in the crash. I got on the CB and called for a rescue squad, but a blizzard had moved in around the base camp and no one received my message." The agent paused again, and for a minute Hellboy could see the pristine white landscape, marred only by the other agent's blood. He could see John calling frantically for help, pushing the body of his comrade away so he could get to the radio. Then Hellboy blinked and the image was gone and John continued. "I knew it was dangerous to travel without the proper gear so I stayed with the rover and tried to make camp. By nightfall the temperature had reached subzero levels and all of my fingers had frostbite." Hellboy watched in horror as his friend's fingers turned black and blue. "I didn't have anything to burn for a fire so I, so I," The words seemed to catch in John's throat. "I burned the other's bodies to stay alive." A single tear rolled down his cheek, but still he pressed on and Hellboy started to regret ever asking. John shivered, as if feeling that Arctic wind again and his lips turned blue. He struggled to continue. "Th-th-th-then the ice wolves came. We were monitoring them and tracking their movements and numbers, but we had lost the pack earlier that week. Well," He smiled. "they sure fooled us. You see the whole time we thought we were studying them, but in reality they had been studying us as well. Learning our routes, weapons, weaknesses." He gasped and Hellboy saw his breath come out in a long plume. "The pack surrounded me and circled till I was out of ammo and fire. I took out as many of those bastards as I could, but I never stood a chance." He finished and suddenly long bloody claw marks tore his clothes and skin to ribbons. John moaned as if feeling some dull ache rather than a fatal wound. The marks stretched from his throat to his pelvis and revealed veins and bones along the way. John stood up shakily and, breathing heavily, stretched to his full height. "I killed as many as I could." Then he fell suddenly and Hellboy quickly caught him. The demon lowered him gently to the floor and eased him up against the block. When he had finished all of John's wounds had vanished. He watched Hellboy with a tired detached look and said. "Antarctica is the most dangerous base in the BPRD, so all agents who are there are asked to join a special list. If you die in the line of duty, then you will remain on this Earth as a ghost to serve the Bureau in times of crisis."

"How long do you stay?" Hellboy asked. John sighed.

"That's the part that's vague. You see the fleet always exists the serve the BPRD, but the individual agents only stay until their purpose is full filled. Then they can move on."

"Well what's your purpose?" John looked at the demon with intense seriousness, about to share some great secret.

"Damned if I know." Both men laughed, real laughter this time, and Hellboy helped the agent to his feet. Things were not okay between them, Hellboy could feel that, but the demon knew that there was a more pressing matter to deal with.

"So John, do you know how I can get out of here?" John smiled, and stepped over a mangled agent towards a door that hadn't been there before.

"Right this way, sir." John opened the door and Hellboy followed into a blinding white light.


	3. Chapter 3

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Hellboy's eyes cracked open through the thin line of sleep grime that had collected there. He tried to sit up and groaned as his head was attacked by a nauseating force. It felt about ten times worse than any other hangover he'd had, and he'd had a couple melon crushers. He groaned again and looked around to take in his surroundings. He was in a medium sized canvas tent that contained a portable gas stove, two empty cots similar to the one he was squished into, and a wide variety of what appeared to be 1950's era medical instruments. Outside Hellboy could hear the low murmur of voices, too far away to make out. Hoping his head wouldn't protest too much Hellboy tried to get up again. "You really should have waited, a nurse would have come soon enough." The demon didn't look towards the age roughened voice, but instead responded reflexively.

"Should of, could of, would of." He managed to stand, but swooned before seeing who was reproaching him. A tall, white man, who was roundish in the middle, and no older than his mid-sixties steadied the much larger demon and eased him into a nearby chair.

"In your case it's should of." The grisly voice responded tartly and then continued. "Now let's take a look at your head." Hellboy opened his eyes blearily to keep a scrutinizing glare on the stranger who was squatting in front of him. However he had a feeling that, because of the pounding in his head, his glare was below Burning Fires of Hell and more in the range of If You Don't Get Me a Cup of Coffee I Will Kill You. But his wariness was hardly necessary for he didn't even wince when the doctor checked the bandages on his head. The man grunted in approval and replaced the gauze. "Good, the swelling's gone down and the stitches don't look infected."

"Who are you?" Hellboy asked incredulously. The doctor stood up, incredibly spry for an old man, and heading towards a desk in the corner, said crankily.

"Don't ask stupid questions. Now, you're gonna need antibiotics to keep that wound from getting nasty. Your not allergic to penicillin, are you?" Ignoring the question Hellboy stood up, successfully this time, and demanded.

"Who the hell are you, and where am I?" The doctor looked at him placidly and retorted.

"Well aren't we a patient one? I'm Doctor Ryans and your in the damn medical tent. Now, are you allergic to penicillin or not?" Hellboy ignored the doc again and rushed, a little too quickly for his still spinning head, out of the tent. Blinking in the daylight Hellboy stared at what surrounded him: a bustling, portable headquarters. There were people in all manner of uniforms going to and fro from tent to tent. Some were in army digs and others in civvies, there were even a few people in scrubs. Hellboy stepped forward into the camp and scanned the crowd for a familiar face. No one seemed to pay him any mind; in fact, a girl in a lab coat and goggles bumped into him and walked on as if nothing had happened. He started after her, about to call out, when he noticed that half her face was melted off. Then the light changed and the fatal wound was gone. Hellboy shook his head, something he regretted immediately afterwards, and rushed through the crowd. Bumping into specters who didn't even see him, the demon began to feel like an invisible spirit himself.

"Liz! Abe? Are you guys here?" No one looked at him as he yelled, and Hellboy began to feel hopeless. If there was only one person here who could see him, then maybe he should go back to that crotchety old doctor and find out what the hell was going on-suddenly a voice called out of the teeming masses.

"Red? Red!" The tall demon searched the crowd for the source and his eyes quickly found Liz, standing at the edge of the camp. He rushed to her, at first weaving through the masses and then just pushing through them. The ghost people still didn't seem to notice him, and they continued about their business of the dead. Hellboy finally reached her and snatched her up into a long embrace. Liz clutched him tightly and whispered. "Oh Red." over and over again. When they finally released each other her eyes were bright with tears. "I saw things. Horrible things. All those agents." He kissed her forehead soothingly and said.

"I know, babe. I know, I saw them too." Liz stared despondently at the ground as Red rubbed her shoulders.

"Every one is dead." She whispered. Hellboy gripped her tightly, forcing her to look at him.

"Hey, that's not true." He said firmly. "We're not. We're not dead, okay? We're alive, and its gonna be okay." She smiled at him and nodded.

"Okay." She wiped away the tears. "Yeah, okay, so what to we do now?" Red grinned broadly.

"We find Abe."

Hellboy and Liz held hands as they walked through the camp of ghosts. Red explained to her about the BPRD's fleet of ghost agents.

"That's incredible." Liz exclaimed as they took a break from their search. "I wonder if Manning ever knew about it." She mused and then asked the question Hellboy had been dreading. "How did you know about it?" The demon shrugged nonchalantly.

"Father told me." He lied. He just wasn't ready to share what had happened to John, and hopefully he wouldn't have to. That hope died when a familiar voice called out.

"There you are, I've been looking everywhere for you guys!" Meyers approached them with Abe at his side.

"Abe! John!" Liz cried excitedly and whipped them both up into a hug. John smiled stiffly at Hellboy as Liz smiled at him happily. "What are you doing here anyway, I thought you were in Antarctica?" John glanced at Hellboy, but didn't lose his cool.

"I was reassigned to the Ghost Fleet to act as a human liaison. As I'm sure you've noticed ghosts have trouble interacting with the living. It reminds them too much of what they've lost. Every minute spent with the living is absolute torture to them." John was looking at Liz, but Hellboy could tell the words were directed at him. The demon tried to steer the conversation in another direction.

"Does anyone know if Manning died in the explosion?" The demon asked and John shook his head no.

"Our rescue teams found no trace of him in the rubble, but we had to move quickly, you were all severely injured."

"Yes Agent Meyers, I was wondering about that. I remember having shards of glass embedded in my chest, but now I bare no mark of those wounds and only feel a soreness in my torso." Abe inquired.

"Yes, that would be Dr. Ryans work, the oldest ghost and one of the few who works directly with the living. If he can get to you in time he can greatly reduce the severity of any injury."

"Fascinating." The fish man exclaimed. "I would love to have the opportunity to discuss the doctor's healing abilities with him." John smiled and said dryly.

"That might have to wait Abe, since our main priority is to find out who attacked the Bureau." Abraham nodded in agreement and looked at Hellboy.

"I believe you know something about that Red. I vaguely recall you talking with Adam before the explosion." Liz nodded earnestly in agreement and added.

"Yeah and then he wouldn't come with us even though the alarm went off." Hellboy pinched the bridge of his nose and tried to bring back the details of the conversation he'd had with Adam.

"The kid was upset about somethin' I remember that. It had to do with a girl. I think... I think he was trying to protect her from something." John had been writing notes on a steno pad and looked up at Red.

"What about the marks on his face, any idea where those came from?" The three friends contemplated for a moment and finally Red spoke up.

He said they were from a previous assignment, but he didn't want to talk about it." John sighed, ran a hand through his hair and said.

"That's not a lot to go on guys." They were all quiet for a moment more and tried to tease more details out of that alcohol filled afternoon. Liz's face lit up and she burst out excitedly.

"Wait! Wait! Abe asked him if they were from a werewolf, because there was a pack running loose in the mountains in North Carolina and Adam said-"

"Yeah, it was in the mountains." Abe finished for her. John nodded and wrote it down.

"Okay, I think we can work with that. I'll get some people on it." Suddenly the wind change and a wavering voice called out meekly.

"John?" They all turned to see a young teenage boy in a Nirvana tee shirt standing there nervously. He stared at his feet and only looked at them to glance at John. Liz smiled and took a step forward.

"Liz, wait." John ordered, but it was too late. She reached the boy and leaned forward to be at his eye level.

"Hi, I'm Liz. Are you okay?" The boy looked like he was about to have a panic attack. He gasped and the air around him seemed to shiver. A bullet hole appeared on his forehead and blood slowly started to leak out. Liz gasped and John pushed her out of the way. He steadied the boy as he began to teeter and tried to soothe him.

"Its okay Ryan. Your okay." But the boy wasn't comforted so easily and he fought against John's touch.

"I have to go home. My mom, she'll be looking for me. She-" Ryan touched his forehead and felt the injury. "Oh-oh God." John held him tightly as the boy tried to get free. "I have to go home." The boy asserted again. "I shouldn't be here, I have to go home!" John gripped Ryan by the shoulders and shook him a little.

"Hey, hey!" Once he had the boy's attention he continued gently. "You can't go home, Ryan, do you remember why?" Ryan nodded mutely and seemed to regain a little control. John loosened his grip and asked slowly. "Now, what did you need to tell me."

"The General." Ryan gasped. "The General needs to see you. He wants to know-" The boy paused for a breath. "He wants to know what the hell your friends are doing outside the medical tent." John grimaced, but quickly covered it up.

"Okay Ryan." He said cheerfully. "Thanks for delivering the message, are you okay now? Do you want me to walk you back to the kids tent?" Ryan shook his head and said.

"I can go on my own." Then he turned to Liz with eyes filled to the brim with tears. "It was a pleasure to meet you Liz." He choked out and then vanished. Liz looked, horror-struck, at John.

"I am so sorry. I had no idea he was a ghost, he was so young, I just assumed-" John nodded and cut her off.

"Its okay Liz I should have told you guys. There are about seven kids in the fleet. Some of the scientists and medics brought their families with them. There have been accidents." John said the last part through gritted teeth. "I don't think its right for children to be here, but their spirits are particularly vulnerable to getting stuck on earth if they die violent deaths."

"So you keep them here?" Liz asked incredulously. John shrugged sadly and answered shortly.

"Here is better than limbo." Abe nodded in agreement and added.

"At least here they aren't alone." Hellboy just shook his head and said.

"Jesus. That kid looked about fourteen. Who shoots a fourteen year old in the head?"

"Thirteen." John corrected and then said grimly. "Ryan was playing a game with his friend. I think it was spies or something. Anyway, they had gotten a hold of his mother's gun." John shook his head. "Neither of them knew it was loaded." Liz made a shocked noised and Abe said.

"How horrible. Was there no supervision for them?" John sighed.

"Its a small base not a lot of money going in, so the government labels child care as non-essential." Hellboy shook his head angrily and exclaimed loudly.

"When the body count is seven kids I'd say that's essential." John stared out at the crowd of ghosts and for a moment the air around him shivered. Hellboy worried that John's wounds would appear like Ryan's had, but he remained unscathed. He continued to stare at the busy mass of agents who had "died in the line of duty" and commented abjectly.

"What can we do? Everyone who cares is dead." Suddenly a loud scratchy voice came on an intercom system throughout the camp.

"Agent Meyers." A frazzled sounding woman called, "You are needed in the General's office immediately please." John paled a bit but then smiled at his friends.  
>"Could you guys wait here please? This will only take a minute." The others nodded and watched as John quickly walked into a tent that was adjacent from where they were standing. They couldn't see what was happening, but they could hear, and it sounded awful.<p>

"-the most unprofessional behavior I have ever seen! Jesus Christ! You're supposed to be a trained agent, but you sure fooled me! This is not some ladies tea party, this is a crisis situation! We cannot afford to lose a second of time and here you are shooting the breeze with your friends in front of the whole Goddamn fleet! Christ, Ryan almost lost it, and the rest of them are about to go bat shit crazy on me!" Liz winced as the yelling went on and on.

"I didn't mean to get him in trouble." Hellboy rubbed her shoulder, but his eyes remained fixated on the tent where Meyers was silently taking the brunt of that man's anger. Finally Red growled out.

"Maybe we should go in there. Find out who this guy is and show him who he's messing with." Abe shook his head at Hellboy's easily provoked temper.

"That would be ill advised." The fish man informed. "It would only worsen an already tense relationship, and no doubt get agent Meyers in more trouble." Hellboy sneered and said.

"I don't know who this guy is, and I am not takin' orders from some yuppie in a suit who doesn't even know what he's doing." Liz grabbed one of his arms and said.

"Please, Red. Don't get John in anymore trouble." Red kept walking and said.

"We're gonna have to meet this guy eventually, it might as well be now." He looked back at his reluctant friends and grinned.

"Aw come on. Promise I'll be good." They finally gave in and followed him into the tent. Red stepped in first to see John standing stiffly in front of a desk and an man in his early fifties practically screaming at him.

"There's no excuse for what's happened Meyers, and your going to have to pay the price for your friends carelessness! **Never **have I seen an agent show such a disregard for rules and protocol-" Red stepped forward and interrupted to man.

"Then you've never met me before." Hellboy wasn't sure who looked more shocked, John or the General. The General was dressed in a military uniform typical of the Vietnam era, and he held himself tall and proud. This obviously wasn't some yuppie who didn't know what he was doing. He had steely gray hair and strong masculine features. He didn't seemed shocked by Hellboy's strange appearance, only at being interrupted, and he held the demon's gaze steadily.

"You must be Hellboy." The General spat out the name and the demon grinned.

"Yeah, and you must be the asshole yellin and my friend. Lay off pal, it wasn't John's fault." Abe shook his head and Liz glared angrily at the demon, but the General seemed almost amused. He straightened some papers on his desk and then leaned forward.

"If you must address me in such a crass and rude manner it had better start with General Thorn. As for Agent Meyers here, its a little late to be protecting him now, the wrong has already been committed." Staring into those gunmetal gray eyes Hellboy knew that General Thorn knew about Antarctica and the details of John's death. The demon backed down immediately much to the surprise of Liz and Abe. He sneered cheekily and said.

"Fine General. What the hell are we doing to stop the people who bombed us?" General Thorn ignored the question and turned to Liz and Abe.

"We haven't been properly introduced." Liz stuck out her hand and smiled.

"Elizabeth Sherman." The General gave her a curt nod and then turned to the fish man.

"Abraham Sapien." Abe introduced himself. General Thorn smiled at both of them for an instant, but it didn't reach his eyes.

"A pleasure. Now why don't we get down to business." He said, moving behind the desk and looking towards John. "What are we dealing with here?" John shook his head and ran a hand through his hair.

"We've got teams out looking, but the search is too wide. They need to look in the mountains, but we don't know which mountains. They need to find a monster with large claws, but we don't know what kind of monster." General Thorn shook his head.

"That's not good agent. We need to get the jump on these people and find out if they're planning another attack."

"I know sir," John confirmed. "but we just don't have enough information. Any number of groups could have attacked the BPRD"

"If I may interject," Abe began. "There may be some information to glean from Adam's remains." The General gave a gruff laugh.

"His remains were practically liquefied. There's nothing left to glean." The group stood there for a moment, lost in thought. Suddenly John burst out excitedly.

"We were able to recover a piece of the bomb!" Abe looked at the John and then at the General and said.

"That would be suitable."

In the supply tent the the team looked at a small piece of mangled metal. "Are you sure that's enough, Abe?" Liz asked. "Its barely the size of a quarter." Instead of answering Abe just took off his glove and picked up the metal.

Abe was transported back through time and space. To him it always felt like walking through a wind tunnel that was full of cotton. When he opened his eyes he was in a shadowy, dank place that smelled of smoke, rotting flesh and fear. Abe turned around and inhaled sharply as he came face to face with a fresh corpse hanging by its arms from the stony ceiling. The body was one of many that were all in different stages of decay and suspended by wire from rocky outcroppings in the ceiling. He was in a cave of some sorts with a small propane lamp, that hardly made a dent in the dark, and a workbench that had all the components to make a bomb. A cloaked figure sat, half hidden in the darkness, and called out in a raspy, weak voice._"_Is everything prepared?" Another figure slunk out of the shadows and a familiar voice answered reverently.

"Yes Master, you need only chose a disciple to deliver your message." It was Adam, pale and trembling, but with no marks on his face.

"Send the girl." That sickly voice commanded, and Adam paled further. He seemed to be at war with himself as he sputtered out.

"M-master are you... Are you sure?" A skeletal arm with soured milk colored skin stretched across it flashed out of the shadows and large black claws tore Adam's face like paper. A thundering force that shook the entire cave boomed out furiously.

"DO NOT QUESTION ME! Send the girl." Adam whimpered on the floor where he had landed like a rag doll and clutched his face.

"Y-yes Master. Please forgive me." He begged.

"Very well." The voice conceded The girl shall deliver the first bomb to Bureau of Paranormal Research and Defense, the heart of all darkness." Adam somehow managed to get up and stumble over to the corpse closest to Abe. With the grim exactness of a slaughterhouse worker he hacked off an arm with a large carving knife. He slowly made his way back to that shadowed corner that reeked of so much decay and putrefaction and dropped the arm into a huge gaping maw of teeth. Then, with the casualness of a man remarking to his wife that they were out of milk, Adam said.

"I'll have to go further down the mountain for the next one, the people in Pine Bluff are starting to get suspicious."  
>Accompanied by an enormous rush of air Abe found himself returned to the present with his friends. He blinked a few times and returned to them emotionally as well as mentally. "What did you see?" John probed cautiously. Abe took a deep breath.<p>

"You can narrow your search, agent Meyers. You are looking for a town named Pine Bluff."


	4. Chapter 4

Hours Minutes Seconds

150 17 33

"Hey is everything okay between you two?" Hellboy's head jerked up from the scanner he was monitoring, startled by the unexpected question, and stared at Liz's beautiful face wondering how he could keep on lying to her.

"What, between me and boyscout? Naw, nothin's wrong we're fine." Liz glanced at John across the tent, he was wearing huge earphones attached to a CB radio and was writing something down at a frantic pace. "Why do you ask?" Hellboy questioned innocently. Liz shrugged and looked at him with those discerning eyes that he was so sure could read the truth in his face. She looked away and shrugged again.

"I don't know, I just thought he might be mad that you sent him to Antarctica." Hellboy shook his head and smiled easily.

"Naw, we talked about that, its cool." She still looked unconvinced and continued to question him.

"Are you sure, cause things seem weird between you two." The demon pinched the bridge of his nose, they had been at this tedious search for a day now and he was tired of staring at a blank scanner. He hated lying to Liz, but he couldn't stand the questions anymore and he snapped back hotly.

"Cripes Liz! We haven't seen each other for a year and half you think we're gonna be all buddy buddy and sharin' secrets?" She glared at him with a fiery countenance and retorted shortly.

"Fine! Excuse me for caring about you!" She stormed out of the tent. Abe walked over from the map he was marking and turned his blinking, fishy gaze onto his red tempered friend.

"That was not well played." Hellboy stood up and snorted angrily.

"What, are you harping on me too now?" He stalked off to the other side of the tent where John sat at a cramped desk seemingly oblivious to everything around him. The agent's face was pale and drawn and there were dark circles under his eyes, this work seemed to be draining him as much as everyone else. Red was about to get his attention, but to the demon's surprise John looked up and smiled knowingly at him. Cross hatching cuts appeared on his face for an instant and he said cruelly.

"Lying again Red? That's not going to build healthy relationships." Hellboy tore the clunky headphones off of John's head and leaned forward on the desk menacingly. He growled lowly so Abe couldn't hear.

"Why don't you just tell me what the hell you want, so we can stop playing this little game?" John cocked his head to the left and asked innocently.

"What game? Like sending someone to Antarctica just because they might be competition for you? Or like getting someone killed and then lying about it to your friends?" John leaned forward and whispered. "I'm dead Red its simple, I got **ripped **to pieces by those wolf demons." He snatched his headphones back and strapped them on. "You're the only one playing games here." Hellboy stormed out into the night only to stalk back in a few seconds later. General Thorn and Liz were standing outside talking and he had no desire to talk to either of them. Little did he know Liz and the General were actually talking about him.

"I know he's keeping something from me, I can feel it." Liz said forlornly and General Thorn regarded her with his steely gaze. He sighed deeply and, turning his gaze over the busy fleet, said.

"Normally I would say let it lie. These kinds of personal issues have no place on the battlefield, but this particular issue has bearing on Hellboy and Agent Meyer's performance in the field." He swung his steely gaze on her. "It would be wise to keep a close eye on both of them." Liz stared at him and her brow furrowed as the pieces fell together.

"Wait, General, do you- do you know what's wrong?" He looked away and Liz pressed for an answer. "General?"

"I-" The General began, but was cut off by a sharp cry that could only mean something was wrong.

"General Thorn!" Liz and the General turned simultaneously to face John, who had run out of the tent with his huge earphones still sitting askew on his head.

"What is it Agent?" General Thorn demanded sharply and John replied breathlessly.

"We have a spy coming in, sir." The General turned to Liz abruptly.

"Excuse me Elizabeth, it seems we have a situation." He marched into the headquarters with John and Liz trailing closely behind him. Abe looked up from the book he was perusing at the commotion going on near the entrance of the tent. General Thorn was ordering three ghost about yelling that he wanted the flight trajectory, identification and projected plasma discharge and he wanted it now Goddammit! Red was in a deep sulk and could only bring himself out of it enough to glare at them all sullenly. Abe joined the group and asked John quietly.

"What's happening." The agent looked at him and Liz the worry showing clear in his eyes, but not creasing his face.

"One of our spies is coming in with some information." Liz looked confused and asked.

"But isn't that a good thing? More information will help us find the person behind the attacks." John shook his head.

"It's not the information that's the problem, its the spy. Spies aren't part of the fleet." John explained. " They're lost souls that we encounter and employ to bring us information. Ghosts usually remain in the clothes they've died in, and we can't have a bunch of people in army uniforms trying to go undercover in the goblin market." John paused to allow a young man in a military technician's uniform and half of his body scorched to a blackened crisp to run through them. "So when we find another lost soul wandering in limbo we give them a purpose, something to be apart of. But the spies are tormented spirits, they're unstable and can be very dangerous." Suddenly General Thorn turned to them and barked an order at John.

"Agent Meyers get them in the back. We still don't know who's coming in." John nodded curtly and started shuffling Abe and Liz into the back corner where Red was still sulking. The demon glanced at them and then pointedly ignored them and watched the activities across the tent with detached interest.

"You said that ghosts usually stay in the clothes they die in, is it different in some cases?" Abe asked. John was staring at the floor in a daze and Liz prodded him gently.

"Oh, um yeah." John came to life and answered the question. "When a living person looks at a ghost normally they'll just see what they want to see, but if the ghost is vengeful or distressed or if the light is just right they'll see the wounds that ghost died by. Same goes for clothes, if the person knows the ghost or the situation demands normality then the person sees what they want to see, what they expect to see." Abe nodded and said.

"Ah, I see, and how many spies does the fleet have?" Abe asked inquisitively. John's eyes remained fixed on the frantic proceedings as he answered.

"One hundred and sixty four."

"So many." Liz exclaimed. "All tortured spirits?" John nodded and explained absently.

"Anyone who's died a violent death and is now trapped in limbo." Liz shook her head and commented sadly.

"Its so awful, I can't even imagine it." John looked at her for the first time with haunted eyes and affirmed forlornly.

"It is the most horrible thing I've seen happen to a person." The male tech called out sharply from his post at a scanner.

"We've got a spirit coming in hot!" The electric lamps in the tent flickered and the monitor screens started shorting out and blinking. A middle aged woman in army fatigues sitting in front of the radio yelped and yanked off her headphones as they emitted an earsplitting screech. The temperature in the room dropped a few degrees and the three living agent's breath came out in smoky plumes. In the center of the room a woman's silhouette flickered and became solid. She was deathly pale and had black circles under her eyes. She was clothed in a yellow summer dress that was made drab by being soaked in muddy water. She was absolutely drenched and the water made murky rivulets on her arms and face. Her shoulder length brown hair was tangled and full of twigs and leaves. She was gripping an empty baby stroller tightly. John whispered breathlessly.

"Oh no, its Amie." The agent pushed Liz back further into the corner. "Stay back here, don't let her see you." He whispered. At the possibility of danger towards his mate Hellboy came alive and stood in front of her protectively. General Thorn took charge of the situation by stepping forward and greeting the the spy.

"Amie, what do you have to report?" She glanced at the corner where the live agents stood and then turned to the General.

"The Appalachians' are buzzing with activity." She trailed off to stared at her stroller and then continued. "There's something coming up from under the mountains and its big and **old**." General Thorn nodded curtly and asked.

"Do you have a specific location to report?" She shook her head, dripping water and leaves on the floor.  
>"There's too much energy to discern what the origin is," She glanced back at the corner where the team stood. "but I know they're planning another attack."<p>

"Where?" The General prodded gently. Amie checked her empty stroller again and stared at Hellboy almost longingly. "Amie?" Thorn said and then suggested in a calm voice. "Maybe we should discuss this outside." Her head snapped back to him and her eyes were blazing with worry and fear.

"Where's my baby?" She demanded and started looking around frantically. The General held his hands up and tried to calm her.

"Amie, calm down, its alright." She cried out shrilly and yelled with a tone of hysteria.

"Where is he! Where's my Tommy!" General Thorn grabbed her arms and tried to pull her out of the tent. She broke free from him and caught sight of the team in the corner. She disappeared and in an instant reappeared in front of them. The General and the three other ghosts in the room ran forward to stop her but she lifted a hand and a wall of water washed them all away. "You." She snarled, pointing at Hellboy. "You took my son." Hellboy held up his hands.

"Look lady, I've never seen you before, I don't have your kid." John stepped in front of him and tried to calm her.

"Amie. You need to calm down. No one's taken Tommy." She paused for a minute as if on the brink of an epiphany.

"Then where is he, John?" The agent sighed and stared at his feet.

"You killed him." He murmured. Amie let out an agonizing shriek and grabbed John's suit jacket. She screamed at him through gritted teeth.

"No I didn't do it! I could never!" She threw him into the computer equipment with supernatural force, but instead of crashing into the huge computer banks John passed through them and out of the tent. Abe looked at Hellboy with a questioning gaze and then they were both shoved out of the way by Amie. They didn't pass through the computers and the heavy machinery crashed on top of them. Abe reached out and caught the ghosts ankle, but she simply phased through his hand and moved closer to Liz who was now exposed. "Give me my son." She demanded coldly. Liz's arms burst into flames.

"I don't have your son, but if you still want to fight." she spread her fiery arms wide. Hellboy pushed through the metal boxes that were crushing him and muttered angrily.

"Let's see what this bitch thinks of the Good Samaritan." He took a shot. The bullet hit Amie in the shoulder and didn't pass through her. She yelled in pain and leaped at Liz, grabbing her and pinning her arms. The fire didn't seem to have any effect. Abe and Hellboy got to their feet and ran towards Liz and the ghost. But, before they could reach them, both women had vanished.

"Dammit!" The demon swore and kicked a piece of fallen equipment angrily.

"Well that's not going to help you." A familiar voice said from behind them. Both Abe and Hellboy turned to face John, who was sitting on the ground leaning against an overturned computer console.

"Agent Meyers." Abe said, the surprise clear in his voice. John didn't look up, but rested his head in his hands tiredly. "What happened to you, you passed through that equipment like a..." Abe trailed off and John looked at Hellboy.

"I'm sorry Red, I can't do this anymore." There was a small snap and John seemed to relax a little, as if some heavy burden had finally been dropped. Abe gasped, horrified.

"Agent Meyers your-"

"Dead." Hellboy finished. John drifted up slowly and beckoned them to follow him out of the tent.

"Come on, I know where she took Liz. We're going to need some supplies.


End file.
